Bill places city's home rule, ordinances at risk

Publication Date: 2015-03-02

• Author:TY JOHNSON
• Publication:Brownsville Herald

A freshman legislator has filed a bill this session that threatens to end more than a century of home-rule in Texas and undo a litany of progressive local ordinances throughout the state, including many in Brownsville.

Sen. Don Huffines, R-Dallas, filed Senate Bill 343, which seeks to require local government ordinances, rules and regulations to conform with state law.

As filed, the bill prohibits municipalities from implementing ordinances that are more stringent than or conflict with a state statute...

Zoning ordinance changes, multi-family ordinances, landlord regulations and smoking and texting while driving bans in cities from Brownsville to El Paso would be undone if the bill became law...

The Legislature, which meets for 140 days every two years, would instead be the only way to enact local policies in a return to centralized governmental rule in Texas that hasn’t been in practice since 1912...